Chair of homeland security panel blasts DHS intelligence chief

As we reported last night, DHS intelligence chiefs were expected to take some heat Wednesday morning at a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing, chaired by Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.).

But the hearing had hardly opened before the full committee chairman, Bennie Thompson (D-Miss), big-footed into the proceedings to blast the DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis Caryn Wagner, in office only three months.

“Unfortunately, your I&A has still never established a specific and effective strategic plan that both describes and delivers results, measures those results, and helps course correct if or when those results are insufficient,” Thompson said, reading from a prepared statement.

“Without such a plan, I fear that I&A risks failing in its unique opportunity as an intelligence coordinator for state and local consumers, within DHS, or for the Intelligence Community,” he added.

As for the Times Square near-disaster, Thompson wondered aloud what DHS intelligence “brought to the table.”

“We have all heard of the successful contributions made by [Customs and Border Protection] to capturing Faisal Shahzad, [which], rightly, are to be congratulated," he said. "However, absent from congressional briefings has been what, if anything I&A or DHS’s Intelligence Enterprise brought to the table.”

UPDATE: A DHS spokesman declined to respond to Thompson's remarks, because it was "an opening statement. He did not ask the undersecretary a question."